Eyes on Spain Film Series

Screening the Civil War Memories on Wednesdays, starting on 13 January, 2016.

First screening of the film series in relation to the Mexican Suitcase Exhibition at the Galeria Centralis (Blinken OSA Archivum) in cooperation with the Embassy of Spain in Budapest and the Cervantes Institute

The Mexican Suitcase (2011) Directed by: Trisha Ziff

Music by: Michael Nyman

Wednesday, 13 January, 2016, at 6:00 pm

The Mexican Suitcase tells the story of three suitcases found in a closet in Mexico City in 2007. The suitcases had disappeared in Europe at the chaotic beginning of World War II, and they contained 4,500 unique negatives that where the works of three friends—radicals who understood the dangers of fascism and traveled to Spain together to fight fascism with their cameras. They were Robert Capa, David "Chim" Seymour and Gerda Taro who had met in Paris between 1936 and 1937. All three were exiled from their respective countries, Germany, Poland and Hungary yet these friends would soon become some of the finest photojournalists of their time.

Throughout the film their images tell the story of war, exile, and the horrors of the French camps on the beaches of southern France where thousands of Spaniards perished. We hear the story of how Mexico pledged its total support to the Republic in exile. The suitcase, a metaphor, takes us through the narrative with the voices and memories of survivors and of the subsequent generation of exiles living in Spain, France and Mexico. This is a film about photographs taken in the past (from 1937 to 1939) and recovered in our present (2007). It is a film that questions how we ignore and bury what we prefer to turn away from as well as the role and the power that photography plays in making us confront it.